TRANSFORMERS TITLES FROM TITAN BOOKS / MAGAZINES

Plod plod plod. Pretty much exactly the same as the last few issues. The art’s nice, the characterisation is good but the story’s going nowhere fast. We do at least get some progression at the very end with the twins feigning joining up with Soundwave, but that’s not much for six months of issues.

Which is a shame as Wheelie and Sam both provide good comedy and there is a decent three or at the most four part story struggling to get out of this.

Notes

There’s been a bit of a time jump since last issue, which ended with the twins on the other side of the planet about to be questioned. Of course, skipping that stage means Furman can avoid having to come up with a way to not have them give over the information they know.

Bumblebee has a custom registration plate with his name on. This could well have been the plate of the car he scanned and the origin of ‘Bee’s choice of English name. Though of course it’s a different plate from the film version.

In keeping with Furman's Bond fanboy credentials Wheelie quotes the "Shocking" line from Goldfinger. The bridge sequence is very like one from Licence to Kill as well.

Most of Bumblebee’s song quotes are too short and generic for me to get a handle on, but he does sing the Spice Girl’s Stop at one point. Awesome.

Once again the cover is totally different from the Next Issue box last time.

A bit of a minor milestone here as this is the 31st issue of the title, meaning it's surpassed the 30 issue run of Dreamwave's Armada/Energon comic to become the third longest running ongoing Transformers title. That's behind the 80 issues of the Marvel US comic (which this might just achieve as well if sales stay constant and we keep getting a new film every couple of years) and the 332 issue of the Marvel UK title. To give some perspectve, Titan's Star Trek comic only lasted three issues off the back of that film.

Goofs

Going all the way back to America just to send the twins into space seems a bit ostentatious. Don’t the Autobots have any ships at their main base in Diego Garcia?

Skids and Mudflap have their speech bubbles the wrong way round as they introduce themselves to Sam.

The cover to the wrong Chris Ryan book is show in the competitions.

They’re reprinting All Hail Megatron.

Fantastic Free Gift!

Another disc shooting thing and more Haribo sweets.

Extras

More Than Meets the Eye quiz page;
Competitions for a metre tall Optimus Prime statue come computer speakers, and a Wii and Goosebumps game, Eragon books, a Chris Ryan book, Power Ranger toys and Vs. Warrior books;
A poster based on an All Hail Megatron cover;
Mudflap Profile;War Paint where you get to draw and colour Megatron;Law and Disorder, including Starscream’s Stars.